The invention relates to medicine timers, and more particularly to medication-holding enclosures with automatic timer means and alarm means.
Most medicines must be taken on a periodic schedule or dose regimen to obtain maximal effectiveness and safety. Many people find it difficult to follow a dose regimen, even with the best intent, due to distractions or disability or just being busy. This leads to missed or doubled doses, with potentially serious consequences. A wide assortment of medication holders and timers have been developed to remind people when a dose is due. However, all prior products fail to provide the combination of security and ease-of-use required for broad acceptance. The prior art medicine holders and timers can be categorized in four types, depending on the functions they perform for the patient:
Prior art medicine timers of type 1 are simply interval timers with an alarm function that alerts the patient when a dose is due (such as U.S. Pat. No. 7,330,101 to Sekura). Type 1 products fail to contain or identify the medication itself, and this leads to medicine mix-ups. Also there is no way for the timer to be reset automatically, by the act of medication-taking, and this causes further dose errors. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 7,054,231 to Valerio, U.S. Pat. No. 5,953,288 to Chappell, and U.S. Pat. No. 4,361,408 to Wirtschafter describe timers attachable to a pill bottle, but these fail to reset automatically when the medicine is taken.
Prior art of type 2 is a pill-carrier with timer means (such as U.S. Pat. No. 7,100,793 to Baum, U.S. Pat. No. 6,574,165 to Sharma, U.S. Pat. No. 6,449,218 to Lluch, U.S. Pat. No. 6,314,384 to Goetz, U.S. Pat. No. 6,169,707 to Newland, U.S. Pat. No. 5,915,558 to Girvetz, or U.S. Pat. No. 5,990,782 to Lee). Type 2 products hold the medicine or medicines, and provide a timed alarm. The products may also feature automatic restarting of the timer when the unit is opened. However, all type 2 medicine timers require that the medication be physically separated from the original labeled container that identifies the medicine. This is a major fault, potentially leading to medication mix-ups since many pills look similar. Also, there is no way to tell if a pill is outdated, such as a leftover medication still in the carrier from a previous prescription. Expired medication, although visually indistinguishable from the new medication, is potentially harmful. For these reasons, most people rely on a label to identify the medication and to provide a dispensing or expiration date to avoid such dosing errors. Therefore it is important to keep the medicine together with the original labeled container.
Prior art type 3 is a timer cap (such as U.S. Pat. No. 7,408,843 to Brandon, U.S. Pat. No. 7,382,692 to Hildebrandt, or U.S. Pat. No. 7,362,660 to Hildebrandt, or U.S. Pat. No. 6,859,136 to Gastel) that fits on the original labeled medicine container. The timer cap may be an add-on, or it may be a replacement for the original container cap. The product emits an alarm when each dose is due. The alarm is silenced, and the timer re-started automatically, when the cap is removed. Since the identifying label remains with the medication, type 3 products avoid the problem of medicine mis-identification discussed above. Unfortunately, type 3 products are useless for liquids and ointments that interfere with the timer circuit. Also, the type 3 products are so small it is difficult or impossible to change the timer battery; hence the product is normally thrown away as soon as the battery runs out. Also, it is difficult to select the timing interval since there is no room for a selection control such a knob. To set the dose time interval, type 3 products require the user to perform a complex series of steps, generally necessitating careful study of an instruction manual.
Another problem with the timer cap product is that it fits only one size of medicine container. Often the original container is incompatible with the timer cap, and so the medicine must be put into another container that fits the cap. This separates the medication from the identifying label, which defeats the purpose of keeping the medicine and its label together.
Prior art type 4 products are complex dispenser machines (such as U.S. Pat. No. 7,302,311 to Varts, U.S. Pat. No. 6,961,285 to Niemiec, U.S. Pat. No. 6,259,654 to de la Huerga, U.S. Pat. No. 5,838,224 to Andrews, U.S. Pat. No. 5,706,257 to Rothman, U.S. Pat. No. 5,289,157 to Rudick, or U.S. Pat. No. 4,275,384 to Hicks). Such products hold single or multiple medicines and are programmed to dispense or release each medication according to a schedule. Such machines are bulky and expensive, and are difficult to program. Some of these devices require separation of the medications from pharmacist containers or modifications to the pharmacist container for operation. Dispensing machines are notoriously prone to jamming, even when a single pill becomes broken during dispensing. Most people want to control their medications themselves and are reluctant to take a pill that some kind of machine simply dumps out.
What is needed is a simple and convenient medicine enclosure that accommodates medicine in its original labeled container, the medicine being in pill form or liquid form or ointment or any other form of medicine, while providing a fully automatic timed alarm to indicate when each dose is due, according to an easily-selected dose regimen. Here “easily” means that the user must be able to select the dose interval intuitively and without consulting a manual. Just for comparison, a toaster that has a single “light-medium-dark” switch is easy to set, whereas the clock on a VCR is not. Essentially all prior art medicine timers are difficult to set by this criterion. They involve multiple, non-intuitive steps that must be carried out in the right order, and are not user-friendly in any sense of the term.